I remove them, so that I do not compete with myself on other sites.
People think that it costs them nothing to have their ports floating here and there.

It might cost a lot. In sales you never get paid for, in undercutting other agencies, and in strange and random even illegal distribution of your images.

 Also I like to know that im not earning anything at that place, and therefore not have to come back and look if there is a payout.

I dont know anything about illustrations.
Your photos are overprocessed for istock, you have clipped the colours and fx the beach houses are too light, and the exposure is tweaked to much for istock.

Shutterstock like tweaking, but i think these are too much.
Fx your cornfields are too clipped and your sunflower is near burnout in the yellow channel. Maybe Im wrong, I clip and tweak myself, but maybe not so much.

Quote from: JPSDK on December 05, 2012, 18:16

I have an eternal fight with them with specialised latin nomenclatura.
"Papilio glaucus" for example.
Called Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

But is eastern east, or a football team in Ohio?
Not to mention Tiger. Striped animal? Boxer? Or a bar in new York?

OMG.

I don't understand your problem.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is in the CV.
Papilio glaucus is also in the CV and maps correctly to Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

So you're OK.
And actually I'm stymied, as I have a photo of a Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio canadensis, which obviously is a different species. However, Canadian Tiger Swallowtail wrongly maps to Eastern Tiger Swallowtail so my image maps to Eastern, and anyone searching on Canadian will be faced with a page of Easterns and might hopefully notice my title says Canadian. Papilio canadensis is not in the CV, luckily, so anyone knowing to search "Papilio canadensis" in quotes will get lucky.

But yes, wildlife is very difficult - but it would with both vernacular and scientific names being reassigned with incredible alacrity.
I just noticed the other day that although I have a Shoebill Vetta file which is on Getty, it will never be found, because iStock's CV maps it to Shoebilled Stork, which it hasn't been known as for at least 20 years probably longer (as it isn't even closely related to a stork), so that's what it is in the keywords, and if you search for Shoebill, my pic, and about 75% of those in Getty won't be found.
Grrrr.

This is what I mean:
   papilio    English (U.S.)   
   Butterfly (Lepidoptera)
Remove Tag   glaucus    English (U.S.)   
   X glaucus
Remove Tag   tiger    English (U.S.)   
Did you mean...
   X Tiger (Big Cat)
   Tiger Beer (Lager)

My problem is, why do I have these choices? Why must I choose if it is a cat or a beer, -it is neither. For a long time it was even hopeless to get latin names in. Despite the fact they are often searched on. Then comes the English names which are often spelled in an oldfashioned way that the dictionary cannot read. Eastern is an example of that. And this butterfly is one of the wellknown ones, it gets really tricky when we venture into the more obscure ones. "Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary" for example. Its a long time since I have uploaded one of these but I can easily imagine what the machine will make out of "bordered".
But never mind, we dont have to discuss this, I just find it super annoying. Im not qualified to sit and connect keywords in that way, because im a non native speaker I can make the most random and undermining mistakes as can the natives when they try to label butterflies scientifically.

I dont care of upload limits, I never used them up anyway, because of the whole upload process circus and user-hostile interface.

That interface is a slap in the face every time I use it.
Arrogant beyond imagination, which actually describes the whole company.

They need broomsticks in the office, to batter off the pitchforks.

From the sideline it is very interesting to watch a company declining so quickly... only because of attitude. The Ivory Tower complex.

You are thinking of the disambiguation system, where you connect your keywords to a internationally translatable dictionary?
If so, I agree with you.

Also I think they are shooting themselves in the foot, as they use such a primitive dictionary, and the connections you bind are often absurd. Their dictionary is obviously based on a primitive form of American English and a set of hopeless associations, and does not really descripe the world well in a global English speaking environment. It is as if they think a dictionary from a small town library in Kansas can describe the world and such qualify their keywording whereas it in fact degrades it because of the narrowminded absurdities the keywords now get connected to.

And... Its really annoying to have to sit there and try to read through their nonsence and try and figure out what it means.

Quote from: luissantos84 on December 04, 2012, 13:12

Quote from: Poncke on December 04, 2012, 13:07

Quote from: luissantos84 on December 04, 2012, 12:06

Quote from: JPSDK on December 04, 2012, 11:56

Next level? I didnt know there was such one. But it sounds good. Is it an aestetic level?

you are on fire, you don't know what is RPD, now FT rankings, aren't you in stock since 2007?

You have got to learn to recognize sarcasm

I know and recognize the sarcasm on the aesthetic level but not into not knowing what is RPD or FT rankings, its somehow joking about microstock/contributors, I think that mostly he likes to say something funny, for me its quite irritating

The sarcasm is in the fact that it takes so long to reach the next level at FT, that it seems like there is no next level. Sarcasm.

As for the RPD, Jenns said Return Per Day as in, the downloads are so low its almost a Return Per Day instead of Return Per Download. Sarcasm.

I thought both comments were quire funny, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Im sorry if I annoyed someone.
But truely, I dont know all the abrrevations. There are so many and they are not easy for us not native speaking. But I do know RPM.
Rounds per minute.
I was trying to be funny with the aestetic thing, but the RPD was a genuine question. Also Im not familiar with the FOT levels and upgrades. So I asked. And got an answer. Fine. Thanks. I also wanted to show you that despite I have been a long time contributor, since 2007, I have not really cared about all the unimportant details.
But I�m sorry if I annoyed you.

RPD what is that? Return Per Day? or what?

It is a good thing.
What happens if you have two environments, an exclusive one, and a non exclusive one.
Dodos against hawks.
The independants are forced to compete with eachother and everything.
And when they try to compete with the exclusives in a certain agency. They fail most of the time.
Because the environment is hostile and protective for the exclusives.

BUT when they manage to compete, they far surpass the exclusives.
Now add this up, and do it again and you have  a selection mechanism.
It is strange how microstock compares to the evolution of species. Litterally.
Mutation, selection and isolation.
The mechanism you have, will not only kill contributors but whole agencies.

Like whole ecosystems on distant islands have suddently succumbed to goats or rats.

And as for stock owners... There are those that think of the future and do not try to milk the cow beyond its yield. They might actually be helpfull in focusing resources to make  profit grow.

HA!
What a golden opportunity.
Send them a canned reply, like:

do-not-reply-to-this-email
This is an automated answer: our financial department will look into the matter as soon as posssible.
Thanks for your patience.

Or not.
I have noticed that when first you begin to use the word "little", it will only take a few posts before you use the word "girl".
I have also said how that sort of communication is labeled.

Thats right. But we are those who face the future.